Short on words, long on produce

The produce photos are piling up. At the same time, I find that I’m a little short on words, which is perhaps entirely normal when a life becomes utterly saturated with produce: the fridge, the freezer, the pantry, the garden, table tops, the basement, and the back porch. For a while we considered displaying our home-made canned pears, tomato sauce, salsa, jams and pickles throughout the house in the same way that others might thoughtfully place flower arrangements, family photos or trinkets. But after careful consideration, we realized the absurdity of this idea (seemed too much like something we’d see on the pages of Martha Stewart) and went with convention, placing them on some shelves in the kitchen. 

Here is the pictorial evidence of how things are shaping up around here.

Here are our beautiful shelling beans just days before the entire poorly built trellis came crashing down onto an out-of-control, land-hungry tomatillo (greed doesn’t pay). A simple case of poor construction on my part, heavy beans and strong winds. Tom came to the garden yesterday and helped prop the bean stalks back up so that they can continue their lives upright, and so that the tomatillo can continue its Manifest Destiny.

Last Sunday we went to GM Farm on Sauvie Island to pick peaches. But the peaches were done for the season, and as soon as we got out of the truck, rain drenched the fields. We took cover under the tented fruit stand. Tom looked away for a second and by the time he turned back around I’d managed to buy about 15 pounds of canning-ready pears and two heads of cabbage for kraut. It goes without saying that the rest of the day was spent in the kitchen doting on pears and cabbage. In the end we had about eight quarts of pears, and now one week later, we are beginning to make our way through our 1/2 gallon of delicious, tangy kraut.

Then there are the cucumbers. I don’t know that I’ve sufficiently expressed the role cucumbers now play in our lives. I believe I’ve now made almost every pickle imaginable from half sour to full, bread and butter, quick, spicy, mustard, kimchi, and sweet. Right now, I’m enjoying some I made with a friend last week; they’ve been in the basement fermenting in a crock since Tuesday. When most people are enjoying a cup of warm coffee first thing in the morning, I’m making my way down our decrepit stairs to the basement to check on (taste) a pickle and a pinch of kraut. This is what happens to you when you hand over the wheel of your ship to mother nature and a few seeds you planted last spring. You just aren’t in control anymore. 

I guess I had a few things to say after all.

Bountiful summer

It has been a while since my last post. In the past three weeks a lot has happened to pull me away from the garden and from writing about it: weekend get-a-ways to beautiful wild places like Opal Creek, my little brother’s wedding on our family farm, and the emotional process of quitting my job of five years.

The garden persists despite my sporadic and cursory visits, when I barely manage to throw down a little water and fill my pockets with tomatillos and my arms with cucumbers. Harvests are coming not like a trickle, but like a giant gushing waterfall. The refrigerator is packed to the gills. We eat generous quantities of vegetables in all form and fashion for at least two, and sometimes three, square meals a day. I’ve lost five pounds, because who has room for bread or protein? And, in case you are wondering, yes, the pantry and the chest freezer are filling up too.

I’ve turned tomatoes and hot peppers into red hot sauce, cucumbers into bread and butter, sour, and mustard-scented pickles, and zucchini into cookies and chocolate zucchini bread. A twelve pound bag of tomatoes from a fellow gardener became six quarts of tomato sauce that will help get us through the winter. Plums from a friend’s fruit-laden tree rest in the dehydrator, slowly giving up their moisture so that I may enjoy them and the memory of summer in the dead of winter. Enormous 'Brandywine' and 'Kellogg’s Breakfast' tomatoes mingle with delicate pieces of fresh basil atop homemade pizzas.

So, what else is there to say? Anyone could have predicted this post. It is summer. The world is generous. I’ve just forsaken my day-job salary for happiness, and I’ve never felt so rich.

The ant and the grasshopper

A stretch of somewhat overcast days in the mid 70s have settled into the city. We’ve turned off the ceiling fan, the portable fan, and the window fan. We wear clothes again in the house. The world feels less volatile now, and in the garden things are more calm as well. No more frantic watering on a daily basis or trying to keep up with rapid-fire green beans. This week, the harvest was sane: Everbearing strawberries, tomatillos, a few more pale orange 'Kellogg’s Breakfast' heirloom tomatoes, and cucumbers. 

With an eye toward fall planting, we headed to the Elephant Garlic Festival in North Plains yesterday for garlic sets. After sampling more raw garlic slivers than my stomach could handle, we ended up with two hardneck varieties, 'Purple Glazer' and 'Chesnok Red'. In addition, we got a good dose of country fair complete with roasted corn (This is a ridiculous thing to eat in public, and so we took it as an opportunity for performance and made big messes of ourselves), soft pretzels and a pulled pork sandwich. All of this came with the option to be smothered in garlic butter, and who can say no to that? On the way home we meandered to Mike and Debbie’s Produce in Forest Grove for corn to put by.

The cucumbers have been brined and will soon make their way into mason jars. The tomatillos have been husked for salsa. The corn has been deconstructed; the kernels stripped from their cobs, packed and frozen, and the cobs simmered down into stalk that now sits next to the kernels in the freezer.  Like last year, I’m the forward looking ant. But this year, I’m vowing to not take on the worrisome nature of the little guy. The grasshopper knows a thing or two as well, and I’m going to keep his playful nature in mind as I get ready for winter. Pleasure, not worry, is my guide.